A Stroll in February

Due to the extremely lovely weather we have been having, Liam, Butters and myself went on a walk the other day.

For those of you who do not know my dog and have not seen her in action while "walking" it can be a rather funny sight. While it is true that she may think she is walking she is actually lunging forward, stopping to smell God knows what, and than sprinting forward again. I'm sure hilarious to any person glancing our direction, but extremely frustrating to the person walking her.

You may think to yourself, didn't Butters go to obedience school? This is a question that Evan and I ask ourselves daily. (Did we dream that?) Yes, Butters most definitely went to many obedience classes and passed almost all of them. (Puppy, Beginner, and Intermediate we graduated but Advanced we were asked to take again)

However, I decided to test her and see if she could handle walking next to the stroller and prayed that we would not see any of the following:

1. another dog
2. a squirrel, rabbit, bird, duck or any other possible animal
3. a bicycle
4. actually anything with wheels including but not limited to rollerblades, skateboard or again a bicycle
5. another human being

You see the odds were very much against us and there were some obstacles during our 30 minute walk. Thankfully we did not see another dog or animal on our walk. There was a bicycle but the stroller was blocking her view. We did run into a jogging group of 3, but we saw them coming from a mile away and I drove the stroller and Butters into a grassy area where I put the stroller brakes on and then preceded to brace myself for any type of "lab greeting."

This can include but is not limited to a fierce wagging of the tail followed by trying to crawl to her new found friend where she will crouch down in front of her "friend" so they will pet her. Now that she has them fooled into thinking she is a nice dog, she will jump up to lick their face or to get their clothes muddy.

Yes it was risky to go on a walk without Evan. But I only threatened Butters 35 times; that could be considered a success.